Trump is 'new sheriff in town' in faceoff with Iran

President John F. Kennedy addresses nation regarding the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

The Trump administration just won a modern-day Cuban missile crisis with Iran and, in the process, helped to expose the true intentions of Iran and Barack Obama’s abandonment of Israel in the 2015 nuclear deal.

The drama intensified Jan. 30 when Iran test-fired a ballistic missile in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions. In response, the Trump administration slapped economic sanctions on Tehran. That led to Iran threatening a retaliation of its own, most likely additional missile tests. Iran also fired a surface-to-air missile Wednesday in what officials say may have been connected to the country’s 10-day commemoration of the 1979 revolution.

“Nobody noticed this, but we had a Cuban missile crisis in the last couple of days,” said Frank Buckley, foundations professor at the Scalia Law School at George Mason University. He also wrote on the tensions for the New York Post.

Iran specifically vowed to take action on Feb. 10, which is Revolution Day there. Based on the evidence Buckley has gathered, it appears the plan was to hold a long-range missile test, which would violate the nuclear agreement. It’s an agreement Buckley says sold out Israel entirely.

“One of the side agreements of the Iran deal was Obama gave the Iranians permission to build missiles which would destroy Israel. That’s how much he cared about Israel,” Buckley said. “He didn’t want them to build missiles that could attack Europe. That’s the difference between medium-range and long-range.”

According to Buckley, the deal allowed Iran to build missiles with a range of 2,000 miles, more than enough range to strike “every square inch of Israel.”

However, the test Iran conducted on Jan. 30 violated that agreement because the missile could reach targets much farther than 2,000 miles away.

“They were breaching the agreement big time. They were putting our allies at risk,” he said. “There’s talk they’re trying to build an intercontinental missile, which would reach us.”

Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Frank Buckley:

Buckley said there are two primary targets in mind for Iran as it develops longer-range missiles.

“The Germans and the French are probably not terribly concerned about the possibility of an attack from Iran,” he said. “It’s basically the U.K. that is threatened. For those guys, the big enemies are the U.K. and the United States.”

Based on translations of written and spoken statements from Iranian officials, Buckley said Iran’s long-range missile ambitions are very clear.

“They formally put all their money on a medium-range missile that is postmarked Israel,” he said. “They are now boasting that they are developing newer missiles, which are long-range and which would have a range of 2,500-5,000 kilometers, which would take care of Europe.”

On top of that, Buckley said Iran has designs on a space-based weapons program as well.

“I think you have to believe their efforts to explore space are basically an effort to develop a weapons system capable of attacking the United States,” he said. “We should think of those exploits in those terms.”

But there’s now a hiccup in Iran’s plans. The dramatic missile launch apparently set for Feb. 10 is now canceled, and satellite images show the missile and launching pad have been taken down.
Buckley said Trump deserves the credit.

“What happened is, they realized there was a new sheriff in town,” Buckley said. “Interestingly, the latest news from Iran seems to be that they’re backing down big time. The supreme leader, (Ayatollah) Khamenei usually fulminates about death to Satan and all of that. He’s toned down his language and so has the social media chatter from Iran.”

He sees the Iranian change of heart as a direct parallel to the USSR backing down in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, only most people missed it.

“This is, in short, a replay of the moment in 1962 when Robert Kennedy turned to John F. Kennedy and said, ‘They blinked.’ It was a Cuban Missile Crisis moment and everybody ignored it,” Buckley said.

In his column, Buckley urges the Trump administration to divulge the contents of the Iran deal and the side deals to the American people.

“We should demand to know whether we placed our ally, Israel, in danger by permitting its great enemy, Iran, to destroy it,” Buckley said. “That’s something that people should know about. If we have betrayed our ally in that respect; that’s something Americans should know.”

And he said the impact on America’s other allies could be very demoralizing.

“Our reputation in terms of defending our allies is on the line as well,” Buckley said. “And even if you’re progressive and hate Israel, then you might be concerned about what this has done to America’s reputation to stand by its allies.”

Buckley said the deal also kneecapped Israel in another way.

“The information I have is we revealed to the Iranians the secret behind the Stuxnet virus, which the Israelis would have employed to disable the nuclear facility in Iran. And we basically threatened Israel that we would shoot down their planes if they tried to attack Iran,” Buckley explained.

“In all of this, we positioned ourselves as the close ally of Iran against our enemy, Israel. That was Obama.”

In his opinion piece, Buckley suggested even stronger responses from the Trump administration when Iran acts in a provocative way. He said Trump cannot stop all commerce between Iran and American firms, but he said sanctions ought to be applied immediately in some important areas.

“Anything connected with anything vaguely nuclear or anything vaguely related to missiles should be on the table at this point if, as we suspect, they’re going ahead with long-range missiles,” Buckley said.